A crystalline purple glamour pulsed in his face. Braced on one of the struts he could see over the rim and into the interior of a cauldron with rocky, gem-like sides. Garruk lay curled inside, eyes closed, face slack.

The corruption in his flesh twisted angrily through agonizing distortions as if it were trying to penetrate the cauldron’s gleaming bowl. With each pulse the magic of the cauldron absorbed a patch of rot, and another, and another. Will could almost hear the darkness screaming as its stubborn tendrils were weeded inexorably out of Garruk’s body. Whatever the curse was, it had met a more powerful magic, or at least it had at long last come into contact with a force willing to consume and engulf it into its own shining structure. Vein by vein the hunter’s flesh cleared of the curse until he was nothing more than a silent corpse with matted hair and dirt-smeared skin.

Dead but free.

***

Worthy.

The voice did not resonate in the air but squeezed in his heart.

All at once, light from inside the vessel burned so brightly it blinded him. The world went white, first hot and then cold. A searing pain stabbed into his side, passed through his body with a ghostly tremor, and vanished as if pulled out by unseen hands. He passed out.

When he came to, he was stranded on a sand bar, half in the water with his legs rumbled by the streaming current and half on its narrow strip of land with gravel digging into his chest. Where his fingers had dug into the gravel, the curved rim of a huge cauldron was just visible, hidden beneath an enchantment and surrounded by the heart river of the Wilds.

A voice lifted frantically from the distant shore, Rowan calling out to him. “Will? Will! Can you hear me?”

Beside him, Garruk lay face down on the islet, arms flung out to either side, hands trailing in the water. With a groan, he rolled over and sat up.

“Where am I? Who are you? No, I remember now. You’re Will Kenrith.” He spoke in a voice with the growl of a hunter but also changed: quieter, calmer, introspective, and yet tense with caution. His chest and back bore many healed scars, some old and some fresh, but of the corrupting rot—the shadow curse—there was no trace.

***

Throne of Eldraine: The Wildered Quest, Chapter 14